I don’t want to fight at all.
Ducking back, I suck in a frozen, salty-aired breath and shove the blade in my boot. Come on, Nym. Get your bearings or you’re going to get yourself killed. I gag as a spray of hot blood sweeps over me from a living, breathing, dying person.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Then I notice the hundreds of giant airships hastening past us through the gorge. Carrying those bombs in their undercarriages . . .
Just focus on those.
A sharp wind whips up and draws in more clouds.
I step out and lift my hand.
A crackle of air thrusts back the larvaelike balloon of a ship just as something whizzes near my shoulder, barely missing me. What the—? I turn but can’t even see the man’s face through his helmet. I just feel the madness rolling off him. I swing my palm over and touch his body with a shock of heat that crumbles him like straw.
But there’s another man behind him. Then another. I stoop. My leg screams. I scream and begin crawling along the soldiers’ feet, using my deformed fingers to tap their boots.
And all the while I’m shuddering and hearing myself yell that I’m sorry and I’m begging for them to stop.
But they don’t.
They just keep coming.
When I can’t take the horror anymore or the bodies toppling over me from the fighting going on above, I scramble back behind the defensive line of Rolf’s knights and work my way into a clearing. And stand.
The storm clouds there are churning and condensing, casting the entire valley in deeper shadow. Reacting to me. Waiting for me. I pull them closer and, grabbing one quick lightning stream, rip it along the outer edge of the Bron horde, cracking the air and sending the whole courtyard into smoke and confusion.
An echo of my thunder bounces off the valley walls, followed by a breaking, then a roaring, and somewhere along the mountain range, an avalanche of ice splits free. An eruption of metal and exploding gas says it slid into an airship.
“Archers!” an authoritative voice yells. “Take her down!”
Thump, thump, thump. Two of our knights in front of me drop dead before I realize the arrows are even in the air. I hit the ground and watch the rest rain around the stones and bodies.
“Move back!” Rolf calls to his men.
“Nym!”
Eogan’s running at me and pointing. I follow his hand to where the archers are and my next lightning thread takes one out. The other men dodge before turning to send up another volley.
Abruptly I’m thrown against the turret wall, and Eogan is holding me there, covering me as I hear the arrows land and another Faelen knight cry out. When I glance up, Eogan’s already stepping away as he nods to me.
I twitch my hand and the dimming courtyard ignites with a flash and the atmosphere roars.
Except, when it clears, the archers have moved and I’ve missed my mark.
Eogan nearly knocks the wind from me as he crushes me to the wall again. The arrows launch a third time but I’m suddenly having a hard time focusing on them. I’m too busy asking myself what kind of sick person notices a man’s breath on her neck or his mouth grazing her forehead when she’s scared speechless and men are dying all around and he’s a liar who killed her parents.
A sick person like me apparently.
The rain of arrows overreaches and thuds against the cliff, all except for one, which skewers a Faelen knight through the throat. I utter a cry but Eogan’s hand is on my pulse, evoking an immediate sense of ease as his less-attractive twin appears, walking toward us from amid the Bron knights.
King Odion raises his sword and the fighting around him halts.
Eogan disengages from me, murmuring, “Finish them.” And moves toward his brother.
I crumple my fist then flick my wrist, and the archers on the low wall erupt in gargled yells as a broad hail of ice knocks them off their perches—bringing a distracted expression to Odion’s face and, I know, a grimness to mine.
When the two men reach each other, Eogan yanks off his cloak, and a collective gasp rises from the paused soldiers.
CHAPTER 33
KING ODION POISES HIS SWORD HIGHER AND, taking a step forward, sends his voice barking across the courtyard. “Tell the ships full attack, and bring me the Faelen king!”
“Stand your ground!” Rolf counters, as the horde of Bron soldiers rushes forth in a recharged, bloodthirsty wave. They’ve gone rabid with their sharp metal swords and angry faces.
Angry, stunned faces.
Stoop, weave in, roll away. Stoop, weave in, roll away. One, two, three men I send unconscious with my fingers before I’ve worked my way far enough back to stand and teeter on a leg I think has gone numb from adrenaline or terror.
Someone shouts over the battle clamor and I glance up to see Eogan and Odion locked in their own battle on the edge of the writhing, fighting mass. My stomach cramps. Eogan’s neck. A red line runs across the side of it, leaching blood.